OBSERVED: On November 4 2006,Me & my family were driveing through the foothills above Idaho Falls near willowcreek when my sister,fiance,daughter&nephew said they had seen something off to the side of the road. I stopped & turned around so I could shine the lights from the bronco on whatever it was. when we got turned around the lights from the vehicle couldn't hit it so I decided to step out with a flashlight when I shined the light on it,it stood up on it's hind legs about 30feet from me.It was standing in a borrow pit and it was at least a foot taller then me,Iam 6 foot tall.When I seen it I started yelling at it & it ducked down every time I would stop making noise it would start to raise its head again.When I backed up & got into the bronco it jumped up & ran after us,& chased us quite aways. We all seen it but we could not make out any facial features.I have heard stories in the past from friends & family of sightings in the same area but never payed much attention.Iam an avid hunter & fisherman. I spend alot of time in the outdoors I have hunted & fished in this area all my life.I have seen elk,deer,antelope,badger,& bear. just about everything that has walked crawled or swimmed. And I have never seen anything like what I seen that night. It was bigger then any bear i have ever seen & I hunt the selway were there is a large population of bear& what we seen that night was not a bear.

ALSO NOTICED: several different times we had seen stuff standing on hill sides but could not make out what it was.Also after we seen it and we were a ways down the road we stopped and rolled down the windows and you could here somekind of a scream or howling noise,something like I have not heard before.Another time it sounded like a baby wimpering down by the bridge.we tried to see what it was but could not we did report it to the sherrifs dept.But nothing was found.

OTHER WITNESSES: There were 5 of us all together.we were just out for a drive and comming home when we saw it.

OTHER STORIES: To numerous & from so many different people.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was about 8:00pm it was night time but fairly light because there was a full moon.

ENVIRONMENT: Thick Willows down on the creek.And lots of sagebrush & cedar up top where we spotted it.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Nancy L. Jones:

I spoke with two of the adult witnesses over the phone for about thirty minutes. They were able to recall a few more details about their close encounter.

The adult male witness said the color of the animal was either a very dark brown or black. It was huge with extremely wide shoulders. He said it was over half as wide as the Bronco he was driving. The animal stood about one foot taller than the six foot tall witness, as viewed from the road with the animal standing just off the road in the borrow pit. Given a two foot deep borrow pit, the animal’s height is estimated to be about nine feet.

He added that the animal chased their Bronco, which was going as fast as thirty miles an hour. He said it ran alongside the vehicle in the borrow pit and crossed the road behind the vehicle at some points. The witness stated that the road was graveled and winding, making even thirty miles per hour difficult to drive safely.

From the time he first faced the animal, the witness could hear it making a strange growling whine noise. It kept this up while running with the Bronco.

One of two adult female witnesses, the driver’s fiancée, confirmed the above details. She had a better view than the driver did once they began to drive away, and added some physical details. She said the animal’s arms were quite long – more than half the total body length. The hair was very thick and a little bit longer than a bear’s. While running, the animal was looking in at the vehicle’s occupants from no more than twenty feet away. In the darkness, no facial or anatomical details were visible. She stressed that the animal was very large and fast. It had no trouble keeping up with the vehicle. She said that all the passengers were terribly frightened, screaming, and crying with fear.

The female witness mentioned another incident in July 2006, which may be connected to the above sighting. While driving with her fiancé and his daughter in the mountains of Clark County, the daughter looked out the window and said, “there’s a naked black man running through the hills.” The two adults paid no attention to this remark and attributed it to childhood fancy. In retrospect now, both adults wonder if she might have seen the same or a similar animal encountered in November 2006. The two locations are about sixty miles apart.

About BFRO Investigator Nancy L. Jones:

Nancy L. Jones is an M.B.A., presently doing occasional special projects for her husband's business and being a full-time mom. Formerly she worked as an IT Project Manager for Hewlett-Packard. She attended the 2007 Central Oregon Expedition.